I don't know about you, but the Acer Ferrari laptops look pretty cool to me and I'd be happy to win even the "lowly" Acer Ferrari 1000. I'm teasing about the 1000 because it has decent specs. See http://us.acer.com for more details on their laptops. Too bad Microsoft employees and family are ineligible to win. Why is that anyway? If my son sits through a webcast and earns the right to be entered into the drawing, why can't he win? Appearances I guess... baa Humbug.

Here's an excerpt from the official rules:

How to Enter/Prizes: You will be automatically entered into each monthly sweepstakes drawing when you complete and submit an evaluation form following a live or on-demand TechNet 2007 Office webcast during the Entry Period (“Webcast Series”). See landing page for webcasts. The available webcasts are subject to change at the sole discretion of Microsoft.

On or around the last day of each month during the entry period, three winners will be selected in a random drawing from all entries received during that month to win one of three prizes:

In addition, winners will also receive one 2007 Microsoft Office Beta 2 CD. Once the final RTM version is released, past and future winners will receive a copy of 2007 Microsoft Office professional via mail or download. 2007 Microsoft Office will be preloaded on the Acer Ferrari laptop, and original media will be included with the prize.

Wonder why they used a dodgeball as the ball on that page? Seems kind of ironic with all the heat MS has gotten in the past couple of days with the Ferrari 'review' laptops the bloggers got. No matter though, I'd take one if I won!! :-)

I wonder about the review laptops. Some people are calling it a fiasco, but it seems in this case, it might more along the lines of "any press is good press".

I noticed a bunch of the folks that received the laptop are keeping them. I wonder how many of the keepers wrote a net negative review about Windows Vista or the laptop. I wonder if any of them did any real measurement then flattened the box and installed Windows XP for a performance comparison. That's probably what I would have done but you'd have to use the same tool to measure on both and you benchmarkers know that isn't easy sometimes.

Oh well, good luck trying to win one of these!!!

Roger Jennings

29 Dec 2006 11:33 PM

"I don't know about you, but the Acer Ferrari laptops look pretty cool to me and I'd be happy to win even the "lowly" Acer Ferrari 1000. I'm teasing about the 1000 because it has decent specs."

By the way Roger, the context of my comment on "decent" is just that. The 1000 appears to be nicely configured, but since I don't have one, nor have I ever touched one, I can't really comment other than what I see on paper in the Acer specifications.

Making the jump from the webcast prizes to the discussion around the Ferrari blogger giveaways is a stretch. You'll notice Windows Vista isn't even mentioned in the official rules and I have no idea what operating ships with the webcast prizes. 2.8 or not, I would still be happy to win an Acer Ferrari 1000 if I could.

You going to try? :)

Roger Jennings

30 Dec 2006 7:26 PM

Keith,

I believe it would be a good bet that the F1000s come with Windows Vista Premium and might even have Office 2007 pre-installed, considering the topics of the Webcasts.

The Office 2007 deployment Webcasts are a bit off-topic for me. I write about Visual Studio/Orcas/LINQ, SQL Server, and Access (just finishing up the Access 2007 book now.)

I think I'll pass on the sweepstakes.

Michael Gannotti

31 Dec 2006 4:42 PM

Ferrari laptop.... I was trying to get my boss to replace my doggy Toshiba M4 with one. They rock! Well failed on the refresh count and am ineligable for this but non-employees should definately give it a whirl.

Charlie Maitland

2 Jan 2007 4:50 PM

<Sour Grapes>Ho hum US only.

I wonder if the EMEA or other regions at Microsoft will ever get the budget to do 1/10th the promotional stuff the US team gets.</Sour Grapes>